Artemis Greekgod

Artemis - Greek god, in Greek mythology, the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and sister of Phoebus, ranking among the great divinities. Like her brother she is generally represented with a bow, arrows, and quiver; and to her also the laurel was a sacred tree. She was the goddess of hunting, and watched over the flocks. She presided over childbirth, the young both of men and animals being her special care. The moon was a type of her, as the sun was of Phoebus. Perpetual virginity was her glory, and the fates of Orion and Actaeon served as a warning to those who insulted her modesty. She was worshipped, however, under various aspects, some of them cruel and bloodthirsty. At Tauris (in the modern Crimea) human sacrifices were offered to her, and the same, in early days, was the case in Sparta, till Lycurgus, according to tradition, invented the more civilised custom of flogging boys on her altar. Her identity was, no doubt, mixed up with that of foreign deities. At Ephesus, for instance, she became a creature with many breasts, a mummy's head topped by a mural crown, and a body tapering to a point and covered with figures of animals. She was certainly confounded with Isis, as Phoebus was with Osiris, and the Romans, to whom she was introduced through Magna Graecia,. at once identified her with Diana.